Composition Commons^™

Compositional Intent: A Presentation Of Original Music, Daniel R. Key

Music Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper summarizes the inspiration, compositional techniques, and performance history of three works by composer Daniel Ryan Key: cling (2015), for euphonium, tuba, and piano; GAIA (2014), for two flutes; and Hours (2016), for chamber orchestra. Hours is a work in two movements, "0400" and "1700."

Applications Of The Sierpiński Triangle To Musical Composition, Samuel C. Dent

Honors Theses

The present paper builds on the idea of composing music via fractals, specifically the Sierpiński Triangle and the Sierpiński Pedal Triangle. The resulting methods are intended to produce not just a series of random notes, but a series that we think pleases the ear. One method utilizes the iterative process of generating the Sierpiński Triangle and Sierpiński Pedal Triangle via matrix operations by applying this process to a geometric configuration of note names. This technique designs the largest components of the musical work first, then creates subsequent layers where each layer adds more detail.

The Impact And Creation Of Level Music For Video Games, Randolph Kestner

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis explores the creation of music for a video game level utilizing industry tools for music compositions as well as level design. Music as an element of game design and its resulting impact is also examined.

An Annotated Bibliography And Performance Commentary Of The Works For Concert Band And Wind Orchestra By Composers Awarded The Pulitzer Prize In Music 1993-2015, And A List Of Their Works For Chamber Wind Ensemble, Stephen Andrew Hunter

Dissertations

The purpose of this document is to assemble into one resource the concert band, wind orchestra, and chamber wind ensemble compositions of the 23 composers who were awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music between 1993 and 2015. The Pulitzer Prize in Music is given annually to an American composer in recognition of distinguished achievement in composition of a work that received its premiere during the previous year. Timothy Mahr completed this study on composers who received the Prize from 1943 to 1992. This is a continuation and replication of that study, following Mahr’s procedures.

A brief biographical sketch will be …

Symphony No. 2: Sights In Sound, Robert J. Luebbert

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

Symphony No. 2: Sights in Sound is an original composition for full chorus, string orchestra, woodwind quintet, eight-part percussion ensemble, and piano. Each of the work’s twelve movements utilizes a different combination of instruments, provides a distinct programmatic or cultural setting, and can be easily performed individually, outside of the full symphonic context. Despite this, the symphony as a whole is well bonded through various traditional elements and unifying themes. The titles of the movements are as follows: I. Phenomena of the Sky, II. Arirang, III. Colors of the Sea, IV. Amongst the Trees, V. Crossroads, VI. Dancing Leaves, VII. …

Journey, Darren Alan Rainey

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Journey is not about a particular journey, it is more about images or moments from within a journey. The interpretation for what this means is left up to the performers and listeners; however, I view this as one person not particularly achieving what they set out to achieve. It all began with a rough start, moments of happiness, playfulness, contempt and contemplation, but in the end it wasn't the expected outcome of the journey. The work plays between moments of vigor, aggitation, playfulness, light-heartedness, comfort and relaxation. Expression markings are described above each area of the work. These descriptions help …

The Wishing Well: A Children's Ballet (A Composer's Perspective), Lydia Dempsey

Honors Projects

As a composer, I am passionate about introducing audiences to contemporary classical music. I chose to compose a twenty-five-minute children's ballet titled The Wishing Well based on the fairytale Diamonds and Toads. It premiered on April 2, 2016 at the Bowling Green Performing Arts Center in collaboration with choreographer Sophia Schmitz and conductor Robert Ragoonanan. Other elements of the project included set design, costuming, lighting, audio and video recording, and marketing. The mission was to provide the local community with a free arts event, introduce young audiences to music and ballet, enrich people’s lives through music and dance, provide …

Musical Contextualization In The Local Church: A Pragmatic Exploration Concerning The Philosophy And Methodology Of Assimilating Sacred Music Into The Worship Vocabulary Of A Congregation, Kaleb Gooden

Senior Honors Theses

God’s mandate for all worship pastors is that they minister to their local body of believers in an effective way. This directive necessitates the use of scripturally and culturally appropriate music that clearly communicates the Gospel to the church congregation. This creative thesis further investigates musical contextualization in the local church.

Five philosophical pillars represent the most basic structure on which the entire process of local church contextualization stands. The minister must be rooted in scripture, led by the Spirit, present-minded, future-driven, and committed to service. After evaluating these philosophical concepts, this thesis will then explore the methodological contextualization process …

Little Birds, Anna Wagner, Daniel Swilley, Faculty Advisor

John Wesley Powell Student Research Conference

No abstract provided.

A Tank Full Of Wishful Thinking: Crystallizing The Rhythms Of The Road, Leanna K. Smithberger

Showcase of Graduate Student Scholarship and Creative Activities

This presentation is a personal exploration of American car culture — the roads that enable it, the everyday actions that sustain it, and the values that justify it. I use a constellation of mobilities, autoethnography, and rhythmanalysis in order to tap into the political, personal, and aesthetic ways our road-centered culture shapes and constrains our lives in mundane and extraordinary ways. I argue that our road system of mobility is largely taken for granted, and is stubbornly persistent due to deeply held cultural values. I use a variety of artistic, evocative methods, including narrative, poetry, and music, because I argue …

An Approach To Undergraduate Research - Developing An Understanding Of The Musical Process Through The Editing Of Early Music, Jared Chance Taylor, Gary W. Cobb

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

This project is an outgrowth of a larger project that involves the eventual compilation of a series of Italian madrigals into a modern performing edition. The purpose of this project was to transcribe and edit a madrigal from Carlo Grossi’s L’Anfione musiche da camera or per tavola (Venice, 1675) in order to better understand and be able to perform an Italian madrigal as it might have been done in the late seventeenth century. Through a process of research, examination and transcription, I was able to not only to transcribe Grossi’s music into modern notation but was also able to also …

What Do You Mean, "Practice"? Theorizing The Writing-Music Connection, Callie Elise Compton

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Researchers in the field of composition studies have frequently made allusions to musicians when they’ve discussed the role of practice in gaining skill. In doing so, however, they’ve risked making speculative rather than testable claims and separating composition studies from recent insights on practice from other disciplines such as education and music psychology. These fields, I argue, offer testable frameworks with which composition instructors and scholars can teach and study writing practice. Such frameworks are necessary because composition researchers need to supplement qualitative studies of writers and writing with quantitative data to generate replicable tests of teaching methods that may …

Breakdown: Vol 1: Text And Music, A Survey Of Methodology And Process, Vol 2: In Full Score., Andrew Synnott

Doctoral

The work presented here is in two parts. The first part is an opera composed to a libretto by the Irish playwright, John Breen. This opera is in three acts and concerns the performance of four famous performance art pieces; Rhythm 0 by Marina Abramović, Breakdown by Michael Landy, Velocity Piece by Barry La Va and How To Explain Pictures To a Dead Hare by Joseph Beuys. These art works are presented as the action of the opera and happen concurrently on the stage during the first two acts. The third act reflects on the action of acts one and …

Aesthetic Meaning In The Congregational Masses Of James Macmillan, Stephen Kingsbury

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Examines the interconnetions between MacMillan’s congregational masses and other works by the composer. The compositional and philosophical commonalities between paired compositions deepens the philosophical and aesthetic meaning of both works. An understanding of these parallels and the manner in which they are worked out in practice provides an important insight into the composer’s intentions, making the performance of the masses within the context of the worship service more relevant to the spiritual experience of the congregant and provides insight into the interconnectivity of MacMillan’s compositional output.

Counteredpoint, Gary Barwin

The Goose

Poetry by Gary Barwin

Society Of Composers Region Iii Conference February 25-27, 2016, Mark Zanter

All Performances

No abstract provided.

2015-2016 New Music Festival, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Lisa Leonard

New Music Festival

Tenth Annual Music Festival

• Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Composer-in-Residence
• Lisa Leonard, Director

Tuesday, February 23, 2016 at 7:30 pm

• Spotlight I: Young Composers

Wednesday, February 24, 2016 at 7:30 pm

• Master Class with Ellen Taaffe Zwilich

Thursday, February 25, 2016 at: 7:30 pm

• Spotlight II: Music of Ellen Taaffe Zwilich

Friday, February 26, 2016 at 7:30 pm

• Spotlight III: An Informance with Penderecki String Quartet

The Motivic Economy In Nikolai Medtner's Sonata Romantica, Nellie S. Seng-Quinn

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation focuses on the motivic aspect of Medtner’s Sonata Romantica Op. 53, No. 1. Medtner, in his book, The Muse and the Fashion, has stressed through numerous statements why the initial theme is of utmost importance to him and how the entire work should be derived from the theme. The goal is to trace the journey of Medtner’s themes through the course of the sonata. Using various methods of musical analysis, I will determine whether the theme is indeed the source of latter material found within the sonata.

Speaking Of Consequences: Contemporary Music For Political Discourse, Elizabeth Adams

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation reads politically works by Georges Aperghis, Rick Burkhardt, Mark Enslin, and Elizabeth Hoffman. Chapter 1 argues that suspending intelligibility stimulates the audience to imagine alternative meanings and ways the music might go, in an orientation that is politically desirable. Synthesizing theorizations by Herbert Brün, Joseph Dubiel, Shoshana Felman, and Enslin, it catalogues four techniques for suspending intelligibility, and analyses Enslin’s Sonata Quijada. Chapter 2 suggests that we read politically metaphors of agency and power sharing in chamber textures, and translate those metaphors into our social and political lives. It draws on Elisabeth Le Guin’s reading of Boccherini, …

Issues Of Rhythm, Symmetry, And Style In Alfred Schnittke's Concerto For Piano And Strings, Ilya Mayzus

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation takes as its subject of study Schnittke’s Concerto for Piano and Strings and seeks to examine several interconnected issues in Schnittke’s music: the problem of unification of disparate and conflicting forces that generally describe his style; the wave-like shape of intensification followed by a pullback that can be seen as acting on different temporal levels; and one of narrative meaning. Particular attention is given to symmetry in various manifestations, which the composer considered a necessary ingredient, comparing rhythmic regularity to periodicity found in nature, while at the same time undermining it through the use of asymmetries in order …